Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Snoozing

D - Ran 5 miles - 48:09
As I walked out of work today, I had an amazing experience. It was still light out (sort of). Unfortunately I still had to take the train home, but its nice we're over the hump, and maybe someday soon I'll get to start and finish a weekday run in the daylight! In these dark days, make sure you're staying safe. I love the Somerville Road Runners' Winter Safety sheet.

I finally got around to following my advice and using a new route today and while it wasn't very fast, it was a great run. When I was plotting out my new route I was paying attention to avoiding bad intersections, I didn't really notice that most of my first 2 miles was uphill. That with the 1 mile steep hill I put in on purpose made for the "wasn't very fast" part.

I do have to say, hills are the great equalizer. The only way to get better at them is to keep practicing. While you're going up its working muscles harder, forcing you to keep your form as perfect as possible (great example of this on Skinny Runner) and to it simulates running fast without the same impact as actually running fast.

Once you get good, you have the added bonus of being able to whip by taller runners on the uphill. I logged a lot of miles with my much taller friend in high-school. Once we hit the uphills I could pass him... unfortunately he could make it up on the flats and down hills while singing 'leaving on a jet plane", but its more fun to brag about how I passed him on the uphills.